Bloody rats
January 11, 2006 - Yesterday morning I've been to
the vet with
Dylan again. And as if this wasn't enough for
the poor little bugger, he was also bitten yesterday evening.
:-( So he had to spend the night alone in the spare cage,
recovering, still breathing heavily, and almost certainly feeling pretty
bad.
Dylan started to show symptoms
(heavy breathing and "hiccupping" sounds) of a cold last week, so
I put some bromhexine in the water,
hoping he'd get better within a couple of days. However, it seemed to only
get worse, so I decided to make an appointment with the
vet. Dylan has also been to the
vet last November, with more or less the same symptoms, although it seemed
worse this time. Just like before the vet fortunately didn't hear anything
in his lungs, and again she suggested antibiotics
(Doxoral Aqua
Drops), the same as last time. (And the same as
Chester got when he had a cold in January
2005.)
I gave Dylan his first
"shot" of antibiotics (in a small piece of bread) last evening,
and he immediately seemed to feel slightly better. But then it started.
First Casey started to pick on Dylan, but since
both of them played by the rules no harm was done. But then
Chester and Dylan suddenly rolled all over the
couch and into the
cage, screaming and hissing. When they were done
I put my hand into the cage to see if they were alright, but when I
retreated my hand there's was blood all over my fingers! At first I thought
it was Chester's blood, but I soon found it was poor Dylan's. Fortunately
he stopped bleeding after a few minutes, so I thought I was out of trouble.
But Chester kept hissing at Dylan and showing other signs of real
aggression. So I decided to set up the spare
cage and to put Dylan in there, together with
Mink so he wouldn't be alone.
Tonight I let all of them out of their cages together
again, and they're still not entirely friendly, but there's no real
agression anymore. And Dylan is really doing
better; his breathing has already returned to normal. Of course he'll have
to take antibiotics for another nine days, but this won't be a problem
because Dylan simply loves Doxoral with bread. I now wonder what he
would do, just to get his twice-daily doses... Fake a cold? Act out a
fight? Bleed real blood? Naw, Dylan is too much of an actor to bleed real
blood. :-p
January 12, 2006 - I think
Chester was also harmed in his fight with
Dylan, because he seems to have a scar just
below his left eye. If the scar remains, he'll earn extra nicknames like
Scarface or Al Capone. *LOL*
|
